THERE’S more to ventriloquism than keeping your lips shut. The secret, says
Jean Vroomen, is to distract the audience with well-timed dummy movements.
Vroomen and his team at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and at the Free
University of Brussels say this exploits a reflex brain reaction, where we think
a sound comes from a source of movement. In an experiment to mimic the effect,
they played a noise directly in front of a volunteer while a flash of light
appeared from the side. Most subjects thought the sound came from the direction
of the light (Acta Psychologica, vol 108,…
To continue reading, today with our introductory offers
Advertisement
More from ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓÆµ
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Popular articles
Trending ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓÆµ articles
1
The best new science-fiction books of June 2026
2
Pancreatic cancer halted by virus injection in three patients
3
Photons behave very strangely if you try to cut them
4
Glaciers in the 'roof of the world' have suddenly started melting
5
Red-light therapy does have health benefits but not the ones you think
6
Aim high but don't shoot for the moon, mathematicians advise
7
Does gravity create reality? A shocking path to a theory of everything
8
Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes
9
'The book is in the future, but everything is seeded from our present'
10
First quantum grandfather clock could probe where gravity comes from



